


Limit of the Void

by Rachel_Lu



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Episode AU: s02e13 Doomsday, Post-Episode: s02e13 Doomsday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 22:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3995182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel_Lu/pseuds/Rachel_Lu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor finally brings himself to look through Rose's pictures for the first time after Canary Warf</p>
<p>Post Doomsday AU-Reunion!Fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limit of the Void

He almost didn't do it. He almost told the TARDIS to hide her belongings, to keep her room as far away from his as was possible.  He almost tried to forget about her, but every once in awhile he'd get a pat on the hand and swear that he could feel her hand again.

He gave in when Martha was off visiting her family.  The TARDIS was too quiet, the repairs taking far too long, and there was no one to chat with.  So he started wandering about the TARDIS corridors and sent a silent request to the TARDIS to set a door before him that he needed to see.  She would often pop him into a conservatory or garden or library when he needed to relax, but the door in front of him now wasn't familiar.

His hand grazed the doorknob for a moment, unsure, then gathered himself some courage and threw the door open.  The door which opened to Rose Tyler's untouched bedroom.

The Doctor sent a dirty look at the roof of the TARDIS.  "Here?  This isn't what I need right now!"

Fuming inwardly, he stared into the bedroom, which had sometimes been a "no Doctor" zone, up until near the end.  Before, he was only allowed in when Rose had nightmares and he could hold her.  He liked holding her.  And there was a night everything changed.  And he stayed in her room, holding her even when there weren't any nightmares to speak of.  He missed that.

The TARDIS didn't say anything to him about the choice of room.  That would have to mean that this was where he was supposed to be after all.  The Doctor stepped into the room, the light pink of the walls and the fuchsia carpet engulfing him in things that were so very _Rose_ that he just wanted to lay on her floor and imagine she was there.  The smell of her swept through the room and he closed his eyes, just pretending she could be there.

He walked over to her desk and sat on the chair he'd bought for her to put in there.  He'd been helping her reach her A-levels, tutoring her in the library before she did her 'homework' in her room the night after.  He shuffled through her papers, packets and notes upon notes spread out all over.  He could see how much work she put into it, how much she cared about the work.  He couldn't help but remember teaching her, when it had all turned into something else entirely.

_"American Civil War then," Rose said quietly, scribbling furiously in her notes._

_The Doctor perched his glasses on the end of his nose, settling himself next to her on the couch.  "Right, right."  He set his arm around her shoulders to lean over and see her paper.  "And you remember who the President was during that time?"_

_"Abraham Lincoln," Rose recited, "I remember."  She turned her head and almost bumped her nose with his._

_Neither of them backed up, the tension growing between them with every passing second.  The Doctor's gaze dropped to her mouth and he tightened his grip on her shoulder, turning her into him and pressing their lips together._

_Rose's arms looped around his neck, her notebook falling forgotten to the floor as she slung her legs over his, drawing him closer still._

_That continued for so long that eventually Rose got dizzy and had to pull away.  She started to pull at his tie, his arms still wrapped loosely around her waist._

_"What are you doing?" He asked, his voice husky, as she threw his tie over her shoulder._

_"I'd like to study something else now, if that's okay with you," she replied, her own voice smooth._

_In response, he tugged her back in for another crushing kiss._

The Doctor set down her Civil War paper, which she had eventually finished, although not that night.  He had woken up to her sitting at this very desk in one of his button down shirts.  The image was immortalized in his mind forever.

He knew he shouldn't dig his business into her desk drawers, but eventually he did, and found a photo album.  He furrowed his brows, unsure as to why she had a photo album, but he wanted every piece of her that he could get.

Upon opening the album, he saw the first picture was of him, the old him, and Rose.  They were in Jackie's flat, and he looked... Grumpy.  Yes, his hand was in Rose's, and wasn't that the best thing?  But he looked so _irritated._ He knew it wasn't anything she had said or done, but how could he do that?  Look miserable in front of her?  Next to her, even.  He loved her and he acted like that. 

Every picture of him in his former body was like that, unless he was looking at Rose from afar.  It was obvious, the way he looked at her.  He should've been even more obvious, spent more time with her, done so much more.  But he didn't.

Then there came more recent pictures.  He held Rose in photos more frequently, holding her in a strong armed hug in a favorite of his from Christmas.  She had her face buried in the crook of his neck and his arms were wrapped so tightly around her he was surprised she didn't burst right there.  He saved the image in his mind for later.

Flipping through the pictures, he saw photos of them from before all of their adventures, because Rose had a camera and she loved to take pictures.  It was as simple as that.  She wanted to remember everything.  He noted that the number of pictures decreased rapidly right after France.  He cringed inwardly, still sorry about Rose's jealousy.  He still remembered finding her passed out drunk on the dining room table, her face stained with tears.  He had picked her up and carried her to bed, apologizing to her sleeping form countless times before kissing her forehead and murmuring sweet endearments in Gallifreyan to her.

The pictures dramatically increased again after that night in the library.

Pictures of them kissing replaced awkward hugging poses, hand holding becoming a fixture, never letting go.  Trying to never let go. 

And he let go.

He reached the final picture, taken the morning before they had discovered the 'ghost' in Jackie's flat.  Rose had the digital camera extended in her arm, smiling widely at the camera.  The Doctor's lips were pressed to her cheek, both of them with their eyes closed. 

He carded a hand through his hair and touched the picture gently with his fingertips.  So long ago, but not far away.  He wanted this picture with him all the time, but didn't want to remove it from Rose's album.  He laid his head down on the desk next to the album and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to overtake him, he might put himself in a three hour coma just to relax.  The pictures flashed behind his eyelids until he couldn't stand it.  He stood up and faced her wall, something foreign coursing through him, something that made him feel angry and weak at the same time. 

"Feeling down?"

Her voice.  That was wrong.  Her voice was echoing deliciously in a room which should have no echo.  The Doctor was afraid to turn around, her voice sounding so strange, so different, and yet it sounded familiar.

"Rose," he said simply, finding his vocabulary very limited at that moment.

"Go ahead," she said teasingly, a step or two closer to him.  "Ask me how I got here."

He closed his eyes, feeling so odd, not knowing what to do.  "How did you get here?"

She was right behind him now, and he was shaking with wanting to touch her, but he felt as though he couldn't.  Could he?  Could he touch her, hold her?  Why did her voice sound so distant when she was so close?  Something was wrong.

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and his eyes shot open at the contact that had been so craved from her.  She rose up on tiptoe, her mouth next to his ear.  "Bad Wolf helped me out."

The Doctor whipped around to see the gold gleaming in her eyes.  He took her face in his hands, mourning that he would have to regenerate again, for her, but he would again be born again from her love, and wouldn't that be worth it? 

"Rose."

"My Doctor," she said simply.  She rose her fingertips to his temples and he felt a gentle prodding at the back of his mind.  A gentle prodding he hadn't heard since the Time War.  Someone asking to get in.

He eagerly opened a link for her, and it all came flooding in at once.

_"Rose!  What's wrong?!" Mickey's frantic voice cut through the wind that was swirling around on the inside of Jackie's sitting room._

_"Nothing!" Rose shouted, her voice gleeful, palms outstretched at her sides.  "For the first time since I got to this bloody parallel world, nothing is wrong!"_

_Jackie shielded her eyes from the gold that flooded the room.  "Rose Marion Tyler, you stop that right now!"_

_"I can't, mum, the TARDIS, it's calling me!"_

_"You've gotta let her go, Jackie," Mickey yelled, the noise growing louder, singing in an ancient tongue starting to creep into the room, the sound itself seeming to wrap around Rose.  The tones seemed to carry her._

_"I don't think I can stop her!"  Jackie's voice was frantic, almost drowned out by the singing and the wind.  "She's gone."_

_"It's all Bad Wolf, now!" Mickey laughed.  "Go to him Rose!  Go!"_

_Rose laughed this time, the sound tinkling through the air as the singing engulfed her and she vanished, leaving a shell-shocked Jackie and a gleeful Mickey in her wake._

_"That's what she needs, Jacks," Mickey said, hugging the sobbing mother to himself.  "They need each other."_

Rose pulled her fingers away from the Doctor's temples and he opened his eyes, the look in them shocked.

Rose smiled tenderly, the gold still snapping through her eyes.  "I didn't even mean to come.  The TARDIS and you pulled me here."

"How did you get in my head?" he whispered. 

"Hang on," Rose closed her eyes and inhaled slowly through her nose.  When she opened her eyes again, they were her normal color.  "Hello," She said, smiling at him.

"Hello," he replied, his face breaking out into a huge grin of its own.  He pulled her to him and hugged her tight, burying his face in her hair. She clutched him just as tightly, and they reveled in the feel of each other for a moment before the Doctor pulled back, keeping his hands on her waist, not wanting to _not_ be touching her.  "How did you do that?  You got rid of Bad Wolf just like that, and you opened a link... How?"

"Bad Wolf has been a part of me since Satellite Five," Rose said, her voice casual and conversational.  "I think it was the TARDIS, giving me permission to control the little bit of it that you left in me."

The Doctor's face softened.  "You remember."

She nodded solemnly,  "I remember."

"Bad Wolf wouldn't be able to read my mind, though," he pointed out, before pressing down to kiss her.

She smiled against his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck and quickly deepening the kiss.  After a few luxurious moments he pulled away and grinned at her, breathless.  "Sorry," he panted, "Needed to do that."

She ruffled his hair with on hand fondly.  "S'okay, I needed it too.  Give me your hand."

"Rose, I-"

"Give me your hand.  I'm gonna answer your other question."

She took his hand in hers, pressing his palm over her heart on the left side of her chest.  He felt the steady beat of her heart under his palm.

"Rose, I'm very glad your heart is still working, but that doesn't explain-"

"Shut up," she said gently, never breaking eye contact with him.  She hesitated for a moment, then she shifted his hand to the right side of her chest.  He felt the steady heartbeat again.

"What?" He furrowed his brows and lifted his other hand, pressing his palms over both sides of her chest at the same time.  It was clear as day, a double heart beat.  "What?" He asked again, now beaming.  "Rose Tyler, you are completely impossible!"  He swept her up in his arms, laughing with her.

When he set her back down, he began his stuttering.  "But, how did you, you can't, Time Lady, that's you!  What's going-"

"Doctor!" She cut him off, laughing breathlessly.  "I don't know!  The only thing I do know is that it must mean that Bad Wolf is connected to the TARDIS, and the TARDIS is connected to you, and you're a Time Lord, so when I looked into the Vortex, all that was put into me.  And I'm gonna assume it takes awhile to grow an extra heart.  When I first felt it, I knew that Torchwood would start experimenting on me, so I started to panic, and then I could hear the TARDIS singin' in my head and everything started to get crazy," she shook her head.  "Everyone thought I was going mad."

"I've never heard of someone becoming a Time Lord, or Lady," the Doctor said, in awe.  "Rose, you are a complete anomaly."

She smiled and cupped his cheek in her hand.  "So are you," she whispered.  "I love you."

The Doctor leaned foreword, pressing their foreheads together.  "I love you too."

The both heard the howling from outside the door.


End file.
